The Wrong Chemistry (13 page)

Nancy licked her lips. “I admire your plan, Bangs,” she said, bluffing. “Maybe we could work together.”

Bangs frowned. “I always work alone. And I'm wasting time. Say goodbye, Nancy Drew.” He aimed the gun at Nancy's head.

Suddenly a figure flew out of the doorway at Bangs, knocking him backward—Karen Lewis. She must have stayed outside the door and listened to the whole conversation.

As Nancy leapt toward Bangs, Karen struggled with him. The gun went off, and Karen sank to the ground, clutching at her left arm. Bangs dropped the gun and fled down the hall.

Nancy knelt by Karen's side. “Karen, are you okay?”

The other girl nodded. “Get Bangs,” she gasped. “Don't let him get away.”

Nancy hesitated.

“I'm okay,” Karen insisted. “Go!”

Karen was right, Nancy knew. If she didn't go now, she was going to lose Bangs. With a last look behind her, Nancy sprinted down the hall. She raced up the stairs, two at a time, and sprang into the meeting room.

The place was in an uproar. The students milled about in confusion, bewildered by the sight of Bangs running out of the building. Nancy desperately pushed her way past them. She burst through in time to see Bangs jump into his car. “Let me through,” Nancy cried.

The crowd swelled around her. She couldn't get out!

N
ANCY, WHAT HAPPENED?
”

Amber and Jan pushed through the crowd toward Nancy.

“Did you find Ned?” Jan asked, panting.

“Or the CLT?” Amber whispered.

“No time to explain,” Nancy gasped. “Get me out of here!”

Together, the three girls pushed a clearing through the crowd and made it outside.

Nancy's mind raced. Bangs had left without the CLT. That meant he didn't have it in the building. He must be on his way to get it now.

“Amber, Jan—listen. Ned and Angela are inside. Karen Lewis is there, too. She's been shot. You'll need to get her to a doctor right away.”

Amber gasped, but Nancy went on. “Karen is on our side. They're all downstairs, last door on your right. I'm going after Bangs. I don't think anyone else will bother you—but hurry!”

Leaving Amber and Jan gaping after her, Nancy sprinted toward her car.

“Be careful,” Amber shouted after her. “Bangs could be dangerous.”

She had no idea
how
dangerous, Nancy thought.

Gunning the motor, Nancy drove as fast as she dared, headed for the one place where Bangs could have hidden the CLT.

A glare in her rearview mirror caught her attention. A car's headlights were directly behind her.

Could one of Bangs's henchmen be following her?

It was impossible to see who was behind the wheel. Nancy told herself it was probably just a student leaving the meeting. Bangs hadn't had enough time to instruct anyone to follow her.

Turning onto campus, Nancy swept past the security check post. The guard leapt out when she failed to stop, but she kept on going. The car
following her reached the security booth. With a quick glance in the rearview mirror, Nancy saw the other car come to a complete halt. The driver leaned out his window, and he and the guard exchanged words.

It was no one, Nancy thought with relief. Just a student leaving the meeting.

Determined now, she sped toward the cafeteria, the one place on campus where Bangs could have hidden the CLT. After the exploding doorknob incident, the campus police had searched the cafeteria thoroughly. Nothing had been stolen, she remembered, but no one had checked to see if anything had been
left
there.

Pulling into the parking lot at the rear of the building, near the cafeteria kitchen, Nancy braked next to Bangs' red sports car. The cafeteria windows were dark, but the door to the kitchen stood ajar. Holding her breath, Nancy slipped inside. The open door of the walk-in freezer threw a halo of light onto Philip Bangs.

Nancy spotted the light switch and flipped it on. “You won't get away this time,” she cried.

Bangs froze, caught in the act of hauling a shiny cylinder of CLT out of the freezer. For a moment he did nothing. Then he bent down abruptly and rolled one of the three huge canisters directly at her.

Just as it was almost on top of her, Nancy
jumped, clearing the canister completely. Bangs actually laughed out loud.

“Very clever,” he drawled, advancing upon her.

Nancy drew back and surprised Bangs with a karate kick that sent him spinning. He plowed into a rack of pots and pans, which banged and clattered onto the floor. He recovered quickly and ran toward her again.

Nancy assumed her fighting stance, preparing to fend off a blow. Instead, as he was almost close enough to reach her, Bangs launched himself toward the counter on Nancy's right, reaching for a heavy carving board.

Bangs grabbed the board and slashed it through the air, aiming at Nancy's head. She jumped back but he kept on coming, his arm swinging the block wildly, challenging her.

Bangs advanced and Nancy retreated. He was backing her into a corner, she realized, where she would be trapped. She flung out an arm to ward off his attack and her hand knocked into a box mounted on the wall. A fire alarm, Nancy realized!

If she pulled it, help would come—if she could elude Bangs until then. At the same moment as she moved to pull the lever, Bangs realized what she was doing. He threw himself at the alarm box.

In the same second Nancy spied a frying pan lying a few feet away. She leapt at it even as Bangs was bringing the carving board down onto the glass face of the fire alarm. The glass shattered and the board splintered from the force of the blow.

Sickened as she realized how narrowly she'd escaped that blow herself, Nancy swung the heavy iron pan into the backs of Bangs' legs. His knees buckled and his feet slid out from under him. Bangs fell, crying out in pain and surprise. Her heart pounding, Nancy backed off, waving the pan threateningly above her head.

The kitchen door burst open and two police officers rushed into the room.

“Freeze,” one of them shouted, pointing his gun uncertainly, first at Nancy, then at Bangs.

“Not her—him! The one on the floor,” a voice from the door directed.

Nancy whirled in surprise. “Mike O'Shea,” she gasped breathlessly. “What are you doing here?”

• • •

“Well, I couldn't sit around and do nothing,” Mike said cheerfully to the crowd.

With Ned's arm securely around her shoulder, Nancy grinned happily from the loveseat. They were in the living room of Ned's frat house, with Amber and Jan sprawled on the
sofa, and Karen and Angela perched on pillows by the fireplace.

Sitting in the peaceful room, it was hard to believe that only hours before, they had all been involved in a life-or-death struggle.

“Tell us, Mike,” Ned ordered. “How
did
you end up at the kitchen just when Nancy needed you?”

“With two police officers in tow,” Nancy added.

Mike grinned bashfully. “It was easy. After Nancy and the girls left, I followed them,” Mike explained. “I figured someone better keep an eye on them. I drove after them to POE headquarters and parked along the edge of the road to wait.”

“So that was
you
in the car I saw!” Nancy exclaimed in surprise.

“Right,” Mike confirmed with a smile. “When Bangs' car peeled out of there, I didn't know what to do. But when I saw you tearing down the driveway, I decided to give you some backup, just in case. I know you're a famous detective and all”—Mike grinned—“but I figured, once in a while, everyone needs a little help from their friends.”

“You figured right,” Nancy said wryly. She felt Ned's arm tighten around her.

“Anyway,” Mike went on, “I stopped at the security gate and told them to call the police.”

“And a good thing, too,” Ned declared. “But Nancy, how did you guess where Bangs was headed?”

“It was easy, once I realized he didn't have the CLT.”

With the mystery solved, Nancy had felt free to fill in the others on all the details.

“I reasoned he didn't have it, because he hadn't been able to get it off campus,” she continued. “There aren't too many places you can hide something that big, and frozen, too. Then I remembered the doorknobs.”

Angela looked blank. “I don't think I've heard this part.”

Nancy smiled at her. “Bangs put an explosive on the doorknob to my closet. He thought he'd scare me away.”

“Never!” Ned declared comically.

Grinning, Nancy continued. “I talked to the security men, and they said three other doors on campus had been blown up, too. One of them was the door to the cafeteria. The other two doors, which were to the library and the computer room, were probably hit to disguise the real target.”

Jan frowned, looking puzzled. “Then he must have blasted his way in there after he had stolen the CLT.”

“Exactly,” Nancy agreed. “The tunnels were
the real clue—they connect all the
original
buildings on campus. The cafeteria is a modern building, so there was no way to get in from below. Bangs had to blast his way in there to store the stolen CLT.”

Mike whistled. “Pretty clever guy.”

“Very clever,” Nancy agreed. “My guess is he stored the CLT in the cafeteria for a few days until he could get it safely across the street.”

For a moment nobody spoke. Then Karen Lewis let out an anguished moan.

“How could I have been so stupid?” she cried. “I should have known what was going on.” She stared down at her hands. Tears began to well up in her eyes.

The others exchanged uncomfortable glances, except for Angela.

“It wasn't your fault,” Angela told Karen sympathetically. “He fooled me, too. I thought Bangs wanted to save the world, not destroy it.”

Karen nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. “It's sad, really. In the beginning, we were so full of purpose. I thought POE would do great things. Somehow, helping Philip steal the CLT seemed like the right thing to do. The way he explained it, being chosen for his ‘special mission' was a real honor.” She spat out the words bitterly. “I never realized what I was getting into.”

“That's why I was so worried about Angela,” Ned said quietly. “Sometimes, you can get carried away in a group and not even know right from wrong anymore.”

“I was in too deep, I guess,” Karen said. “Suddenly things were going too fast for me to think clearly. And,” she added, looking ashamed, “I guess I wanted to please Philip.”

“He's a pretty forceful guy,” Nancy put in. “He could have used that power for good, but unfortunately he chose to use it for evil instead.”

Karen looked up with fresh tears in her eyes. “But I'm still to blame for a lot of it,” she declared. “I helped form the group; I went along with everything he said.”

“You didn't know what he was really doing,” Ned pointed out.

“No,” Karen admitted, “but that doesn't make me feel any better.” She gave a weak smile. “I still feel like I got off too easily.”

“You got hurt,” Amber exclaimed. “That's not ‘easily,' if you ask me.”

“And you did save us,” Angela added, “I mean, in the end.”

Karen looked up with a newly determined look on her face. “There is something I can do,” she announced. “I can stop the demonstration tomorrow. There won't be any guns in the
auditorium, fake or not. And I can turn POE back into the group it should be—a peaceful group, one committed to truly protecting our environment.”

Angela turned to Ned, her eyes sparkling. “That's a wonderful idea,” she said. “And I'll bet the first one to join your
new
group will be Ned Nickerson.”

Nancy gave Ned a special squeeze as everyone laughed.

• • •

As Professor Maszak invited Nancy and Ned into his freshly cleaned living room, he was positively jovial.

“Sit down, sit down,” he urged. “Can I get you anything?”

“Thanks, but we can stay only a minute,” Nancy replied. “I just came to say goodbye.”

“I'm so glad you did! I can thank you again for all you've done,” the professor said. “I even have a bit of good news. My assistant, Sara—she got her scholarship.” Maszak's eyes twinkled. “Now maybe she'll be able to relax and stop blowing things up in the lab.”

“I'm sure she will,” Nancy said warmly.

“But seriously,” he continued, “I want you to know something else. I have realized that nothing can ever justify unleashing my formula on the world again—accidentally
or
on purpose. I
destroyed it this morning. I wiped it out of the computer and burned all my notes. And I promise you, I will never create it again.”

“But, professor,” Nancy asked, “does that ruin your chances of teaching at Emerson?”